TV effect on children gender role socialization
Does the television create, or maintain, or reflect the gender-based roles in our society? Children are watching about twenty thousand advertisements per year. There are many role models in life that children follow and they mostly exist on TV, so if they are watching optimistic role models they will also behave in such way and if they are watching violent and pessimistic role models they will act the same as well. They can be even more effected by their favorite TV show. Children can also get effectuated other than that by gender stereotyped role models and gender biased attitudes role models.
Research showed that children by age of sixteen, they have spent more time and energy sitting in front of the TV than going to school. Television is perhaps the most significant form of media in shaping ideas of gender social roles. The bias and stereotypes behaviors and attitudes about gender that television portrays in films and advertisement affect the children perception of accepted females and males roles in the society. Research have shown that pre-school children spend an average of thirty hours per week watching television; children except for sleeping spend more time watching television than they spend on anything else so it is not surprising that children gain certain perception and ideas from this television experience with regard to gender.
The young children watches television come to an understanding women are mothers and men are business representative .To study the relationship between television viewing and sex-typed behavior provided by television a study was conducted in central new jersey included 50 males and 50 females children’s , ranging age from 44 months to 77 months from different nursery schools and kindergarten The parents were informed of the purpose and procedures of the study, but were asked not to disclose the purpose to n the study the children were asked to watch 5 min bugs bunny cartoon in which the researchers edited 1 min long commercial One . in this commercial a gender neutral toy was selected called the fisher price movie viewer which is perceived as appropriate for both female and males
Two identical commercial was prepared. The first one showing 2 boys playing with the toy with corresponding gender voice telling the narration of the commercial. While the second commercial showing 2 girls playing with the toy with corresponding gender voice telling the narration. The child was asked to sit down and watch the cartoon while the experimenter went to make a phone call The researcher turned on the videotape player and left the room, entering the adjacent section The time spent viewing the commercial was recorded Forty children saw “same-sex” models playing with a toy, 40 children saw opposite-sex models playing with a toy, 40 children saw opposite-sex models playing with a toy and 20 saw no commercial (control). The result was that children spent less time playing with the fish price movie viewer when they saw opposite-sex in the commercial playing with the toy than when they saw same-sex playing with it.
One of the questions that the researcher asked that if he has a little brother and a little sister, and their birthdays are coming up. Who would like this toy more, his brother or hi sister? As expected, children who viewed the opposite-sex commercial were more likely than children in the other two groups to say that opposite-sex siblings would like the viewer more
This study proves how TV commercials had a dramatic impact on children’s subsequent behavior with that toy based on the children perception of gender role by portraying a gender-neutral toy and made it seem appropriate for only one sex to play with.
Children watching male-female interaction on television, where men are usually more dominant, more rational, motivated, clever, competitive, Powerful, stable, violent, and tolerant, while women are delicate, passionate, good-looking, happy, sincere, friendly, nonviolent, fair, obedient, and timid. TV emphasizes one men image as being strong, good leaders, and skillful team members, on the other hand TV emphasizes for women on their charm and attraction.
Knowing this important questions need to be addressed. Why does television project men only as representatives of professional workers? What does this indicate about gender-based roles constructed by our society? What impact may it have on boys and men, girls and women’s self-esteem and decision making? What consequences does this have on women in the workplace in terms of employment, development, and levels of incomes compared to men?
There is a smaller chance for female children to develop self –respect, autonomy and self-teem when they keep receiving messages from commercials and televisions viewing female as passive, uncertain and inferior to men. Television reinforces that those traits the appropriate characteristics for a woman to be. Similarly male children are more likely to exhibit leadership characteristics’ as they learned that those traits are appropriate and expected role for males these images may be covertly conveyed to young children by watching how females were portrayed in cartoons. all male characters categorized as chase and pratfall When females did appear, they needed to be rescued. Messages conveyed by television are source of concern because very young children cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Female characters in television played roles of housewife-mother, girlfriend, grandmother, aunt, villain’s daughter, maid, babysitter, nurse, teacher, office assistant, waitress, singer, movie star, TV reporter, circus performer, and witch. A research conducted in 1981 found that 75.5% of the characters in children’s television were male and 21% were female. The female characters were more likely to be younger and were more likely to be wed than males. Males were assigned significantly more major roles and were more likely to be working, while males typically were portrayed as falling into a higher socioeconomic class. Female characters were more selfless but also were more likely to use personal charm to accomplish goals; males were more likely to use violence or skills. Whereas females emphasized personal relationships, males emphasized achievement.
Dafna lemish the author of screening gender on children’s television discussed eight working principle for producing better gender portrayals on television for children around the world. Those principles shared the following core concepts:Equality, diversity,complexity,similarity,unity,family, authenticity and voicing
Equality: equality is practices when boys and girls are treated equally and offered equal roles on and opportunities and responsibilities on television this can be done by having equal number of males and females on the screen in all manners of presentations and all type of chrachters: new presenters, hosts of programmes, public programmes, aliens in the out space animals in the forest and even fish in the sea.. equality also means role reversal where roles socially associated with one gender are portrayed by the other one. For example. Boys aspiring to be teachers engaged in cooking and taking care of young siblings while girls aspiring to become doctors engaged in plying sport. It is very important to be equal but it is also very important to respect the differences, because they are not the same. There are girls topics and boys topics we should think what interest both and what they need
The second core is diversity: which is the requirement for a variety of characters within each gender where there are many girls in a show exhibiting a variety of characteristics and qualities for example: the adventurous girls, the pinky girls, the intellect girls, it is a creative approach to tell the different kind of stories but if the producers create only one female character that stand for all girls it will lead to stereotype
Complexity: while the principle of diversity discussed the inclusion of the variety of character types. The principle of complexity requires that each character will be a complete human being while diversity focuses on the “between characters” complexity focuses on the “within” characters. For example a program may have a diverse character but yet some of these character or all may be stereotypical and lack complexity. For example the famouse children tv show the smurfs that include blue figures all males whose name eflect their main personality trait( lazy smurf, grouchy smurf brainy smurf and only one female character whose name reflect being female as her only trait her name is smurfette
Similarity: is to focus on the shared aspects of girls and boys lives rather than focusing on the differences that can evolve in stereotype. This could bring children togather who shares the same dreams, same challenges, who need love and friendship
Unity: the principle of unity refers to the possibility of presenting boys and girls as sharing life experiences together, collaborating with one another. United in their join request for happy growth and development, applying the principle of unity will bridge existing gaps between gender relationship. Dora the explorer presents a healthy boy-girls relationship dora which is the lead character has an imagination she doesn’t get everything right all the time she is willing to admit her mistakes and has a very good relationship with her male friend.
Also the preschool programe which is a gender programme called the wonder pets where a trio of heroes consist of two female and male character rescue baby animal an demonstrate the benefits of team work, whoever come up with the better solution is supported and followed by the others
Family: family is the main social context of children’s lives, thus offering a new concept and role models of motherhood and fatherhood can open their vision about it for example presenting mom that work outside the home as great mom and to show strong men taking care of their childrens
Despite that television has a great influence on gender role socialization However; the strongest influence on gender role development seems to occur within the family setting, with parents passing on, both overtly and covertly, their own beliefs about gender to their children
1. parents should teach the children to be knowledgeable consumers of media rather than trying to guard them from it. Parents won’t be able to shield their children from the gender socialization that happens by the media, But they could teach their kids that Our society is not gender neutral, and gender assumptions are everywhere. A parent should be encouraged to talk with their children about gender stereotypes they encountered and then offer alternative ways of thinking. For example. The mom will say to her child I noticed that the mom is always washing the dishes on the show. That seems unfair; the dad should help out too. From that point, it’s equally important to model gender equality at home. In other words, instead of trying to change the child, work to change the surrounding culture.
Parents should be careful of the covert ways gender stereotypes are taught to their children. Without realizing it For example, parents often compliment their daughter’s appearance and their son’s talents or intelligence. Parents talk about feelings with daughters while they talk about events with sons.
parents should allow their children to take the lead and Expose them to a variety of activities and toys without gender labeling in order to allow them to make their own choices about what they like, for example Joanne who says she that she tries to encourage her daughters to pursue things that she show interest in, with no regard for whether it’s considered “girly” .she can still be girly even if she loves playing pirates, her favorite color is green, or loves playing soccer.”
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